Empowering Your Work Life
11 Ideal Tasks To Give To A Virtual Assistant
Estimated read time: 1:20
Summary
In this engaging video, Jen Lehner shares insightful tips on how to effectively utilize a virtual assistant in your business. From social media management to email handling, she explores 11 ideal tasks to delegate. Alongside practical advice, Jen highlights the benefits of outsourcing such responsibilities, promoting both business efficiency and work-life balance. If you've been hesitant or unsure about integrating a virtual assistant, this video provides a comprehensive overview to help your decision-making process and highlights the enormous potential of VAs in managing routine tasks, allowing you to focus on more critical aspects of your work.
Highlights
- VAs can automate your social media presence through scheduling tools. 🎯
- Fear not, you can safely share your inbox with your VA for better email management! 📨
- Your VA can represent your brand seamlessly in Facebook groups as your avatar. 🦸♀️
- Create stunning graphics without the designer price tag using platforms like Canva. 🎨
- Outsource newsletters creation for consistent communication with your audience. 📰
- Delegate podcasts and video editing to your VA to keep content flow smooth. 🎙️
- Your VA can handle the technical side of client onboarding and affiliate campaigns. 🚀
Key Takeaways
- Discover 11 tasks perfect for your Virtual Assistant (VA) to handle and save you time. 🤓
- Social media management and email organization can easily be handled by your VA. 📭
- Use tools like Trello and Recurpost to streamline collaboration with your VA. 📅
- Your VA can help keep your Facebook groups active and engaging. 📱
- They can produce newsletters and manage affiliate campaigns for seamless business operation. ✉️
- VAs can make your life easier by creating graphics with user-friendly tools like Canva. 🎨
- Delegate Zoom meeting follow-ups and client onboarding for smooth workflows. 💼
- Outsourcing editing work frees up even more of your time for things only you can do! ✨
Overview
Hey there, ever felt overwhelmed by the never-ending tasks piling up at work? Jen Lehner has got the secret sauce to lighten your load with a virtual assistant! From juggling your social media to tidying up your email mess, it’s time to breathe easy as Jen outlines 11 fantastic tasks your VA can take the reins on, ensuring you can focus on the fun stuff! Why sweat the small stuff when your VA can take care of it with a dash of flair, right?
Imagine waking up to an inbox that's been perfectly pruned while your social media hums along like a well-oiled machine—all thanks to your amazing VA! Jen explains how using collaboration tools like Trello and social media schedulers makes these tasks a cakewalk. Plus, your VA can keep your Facebook community buzzing with energy and craft eye-catching graphics, thanks to easy-to-use design software like Canva. Genius, right?
And it doesn’t stop there! Let your VA dive into the realms of newsletters, podcast production, and client onboarding. Your business will not only keep thriving but grow with grace. Jen also shares how these tasks, when managed effectively, ensure that your personal touch and involvement shine through in important business parts while all the nitty-gritty is being expertly managed. What more could you want from a modern workday ally?
Chapters
- 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Hiring a Virtual Assistant The chapter 'Introduction to Hiring a Virtual Assistant' discusses the necessity of hiring support in the form of a virtual assistant. Many business owners may acknowledge this need but remain uncertain about which tasks to delegate. The chapter promises to address this by outlining 11 ideal tasks for a virtual assistant. It is presented by Jen Lehner, who has extensive experience aiding solopreneurs, coaches, course creators, authors, and subject matter experts in expanding their businesses through effective outsourcing.
- 00:30 - 04:00: Social Media Management The chapter titled 'Social Media Management' focuses on discussing the efficient handling of social media tasks. It begins by addressing the common frustration many face with the continuous demands of posting on social media, likening it to a never-ending hamster wheel. The chapter promises to introduce tools and strategies aimed at alleviating these burdens.
- 04:00 - 07:00: Managing Your Inbox Effectively The chapter discusses the importance of effectively managing your inbox and offers various tools that can aid in this process. The narrator highlights their own use of a Trello board to organize and process content. They emphasize that while they prefer Trello, one could use other collaborative software like Asana or even a simple Google document for similar results. The key takeaway is that any tool which facilitates collaboration and organization would suffice. The example shown includes a column called 'content processing', where each card is labeled with specific dates and contains information about corresponding posts and their assignments.
- 07:00 - 09:00: Optimizing Facebook Group Activities The chapter 'Optimizing Facebook Group Activities' focuses on organizing and planning content for Facebook group engagements. It describes how to manage and distribute posts effectively, ensuring all necessary elements like graphics, descriptions, and links are included. The process involves listing out content details, associated graphics, publishing platforms, and accompanying text or links. The emphasis is on the logistical side of preparing social media posts to enhance group interactions.
- 09:00 - 10:30: Creating Graphics and Using Canva In this chapter, the focus is on planning and scheduling social media posts. The use of tools such as Recurpost is discussed, which helps in scheduling content across various platforms including Google My Business, LinkedIn, Twitter, and more. There's an emphasis on preparing content in advance for consistent social media presence.
- 10:30 - 12:00: Building Landing Pages and Sales Funnels The chapter discusses the ease of scheduling content on platforms like Facebook, using tools such as Creator Studio. It highlights the convenience of setting content to auto-publish without needing complex tools.
- 12:00 - 15:00: Developing Newsletters This chapter focuses on the process of developing newsletters. It includes instructions on scheduling Instagram and Facebook posts using a dashboard. The user demonstrates how to create a post by clicking 'Create post' and entering the necessary information such as text, photos, or videos. The chapter ends with guidance on scheduling the post by selecting a specific time and date.
- 15:00 - 17:30: Podcast Production and Promotion This chapter discusses how Virtual Assistants (VAs) can assist with social media management and email inbox management, helping to streamline communication and organization. It addresses common concerns about trusting VAs with sensitive tasks like email management, ensuring that important messages remain accessible while reducing clutter.
- 17:30 - 21:00: Video Editing and Zoom Recordings The chapter discusses video editing and managing Zoom recordings in a business context. The author shares personal insights into their processes and the importance of prioritizing these tasks. The speaker highlights a common sentiment about delegation to a Virtual Assistant (VA) and offers a peek into their business practices, specifically related to email management. A mention of a tutorial video on customizing Gmail for business purposes suggests additional resources are available for handling such tasks efficiently.
- 21:00 - 23:30: New Client Onboarding Process This chapter outlines the new client onboarding process with a focus on email management. The speaker describes how their VA (Virtual Assistant) handles LinkedIn marketing emails. Emails that are deemed irrelevant, like most LinkedIn marketing ones, may be deleted or archived by the VA. However, if the VA identifies an email as important for business, especially if it seems necessary for the speaker to see, they will ensure it's brought to the speaker's attention. This process helps streamline communication and prioritizes important messages.
- 23:30 - 27:00: Managing Affiliate Campaigns The chapter discusses managing affiliate campaigns, focusing on using email as a tool for organization. The process involves starring important emails that need attention, illustrating how to prioritize communication. This method is facilitated by sorting and marking emails, enabling efficient delegation of tasks to a virtual assistant (VA). The system helps ensure critical emails are addressed promptly, optimizing affiliate campaign management.
- 27:00 - 29:30: Conclusion: Outsourcing to a VA In the conclusion chapter about outsourcing to a virtual assistant (VA), the text focuses on demonstrating how tasks are delegated within a task management or project management tool. Specifically, the chapter describes the process of moving tasks to a 'delegated' section, which signals to the VA (assumed here to be named Neeca) that they have tasks they need to address. The chapter underscores the importance of visually tracking task assignments and ensuring the VA knows their responsibilities. The narrator points out indicators such as icons and sections that guide the VA in knowing what needs to be taken care of, enhancing the efficiency of task management and delegation.
11 Ideal Tasks To Give To A Virtual Assistant Transcription
- 00:00 - 00:30 Have you come to terms with the fact that you need to get some support to hire a virtual assistant but you have no idea what tasks you would give to a virtual assistant? Well, you're in the right place because today we're going to look at 11 ideal tasks to give to a virtual assistant. And if you're new around here, my name is Jen Lehner. I have helped hundreds of solopreneurs, coaches, course creators, authors, and subject matter experts scale their businesses by outsourcing
- 00:30 - 01:00 the smart way. So let's dig into these 11 ideal tasks. First on the list, social media. Aren't you so ready to let go of the posting on social media and just the constant hamster wheel that is involved with that? Well, let me show you the tools that we use and how we take care of that
- 01:00 - 01:30 in my own business. So what you're looking at here is our Trello board. We love Trello but you honestly don't need anything like I mean you don't have to use Trello. You could use Asana. You could use a Google doc, really any kind of software that allows you to collaborate. And what I want you to look here is at this column where it says content processing. And you'll notice that each card has a date there's July 28th, July 27th, and each of these cards has the information of what this post is going to be and where it goes. Okay,
- 01:30 - 02:00 so we've got a list that this is the content that's going to go out and then these are the graphics that we need. These are all the places where it needs to get published and any copy that needs to go with it like my thoughts about it or any links that need to go with it are going to be listed here as well. So like right here, where it says description this is all the copy that's going to go with this social media post. The point is we know
- 02:00 - 02:30 every day of the week what we're going to post on social media in advance. Then what we can do, you have a couple of options you can use a tool like Recurpost. This is a content scheduler that will post your content on all the channels where you want your content to appear so over here on the left you can see everywhere that we've got listed. We've got Google My Business, Linkedin company page, Linkedin profile, Twitter, all the places. Okay and so what we can do is my team goes
- 02:30 - 03:00 in and they just schedule all the content here in advance and it automatically gets published on that date. So they set it and forget it. And of course, the other thing that is so great is you don't need anything fancy like that because on all social media these days you can just schedule it from right there inside the platform. So if you go to Creator Studio in Facebook,
- 03:00 - 03:30 you can schedule your Instagram and your Facebook posts in advance natively right here in this amazing dashboard. So I'm going to click 'Create post' and of course I'm not really going to be doing this. My VA is going to be doing this. We just write 'test'. Add a photo or a video or whatever you want and right here where it says 'Publish', we're going to schedule the post and you just pick your time and date. So that's just a brief overview of
- 03:30 - 04:00 how your VAs can handle all your social media for you. What about inbox management? Yes, managing your emails so that when you wake up in the morning you only have what you need to see sitting in that inbox for you. So maybe you only have two emails versus the 500 that are sitting there and I know what you're thinking because it makes you feel a little vulnerable to have a VA in your inbox and maybe you sort of think like what if they delete something I really
- 04:00 - 04:30 need. yadda yadda yadda. I know exactly what you're thinking because actually, this is the last thing that I gave to my VA. I wish it would have been the first thing. Let me give you a glimpse of how we do this in my business. All right, this is a glimpse into our yeah my business email account and you're probably thinking, "Jen my Gmail does not look like that like it doesn't have these cool sections. I've got a video that will show you how to do that I'll link to it down below. But
- 04:30 - 05:00 this is the main thing that I want to show you. So when my VA comes in here so for example, Linkedin marketing. So there's this email about Linkedin marketing. So she knows that that is probably something we're not gonna save. It's not something I necessarily need to see. She might read it if she thinks there's something valuable for our business but she'll probably just delete that or archive it. But let's suppose it's something that she thinks I really need to see that's come into
- 05:00 - 05:30 my inbox. So we're going to pretend this email from Tamson is something that I need to see. She's going to put a star on that and if you look over here in the right-hand quadrant you could see all the emails that are starred that I need to pay attention to. Then if I get to the inbox first and I see something and I'm thinking oh this is something that my VA needs to take care of. I'll click on that star over here on the left and I'm going to click it again
- 05:30 - 06:00 until I see the icon. You see how the icons are changing? So I'm looking for the little red arrow thingy, right there. And what happens is if you look over here to the right under delegate, it's going to take a minute let me refresh it and if you look here under delegated you can see that's it's moved over here to the section on the right. So now Neeca knows when she comes in, "Oh this is something I need to take care of
- 06:00 - 06:30 and then there's certain blogs and newsletters that I subscribe to that Neeca knows that I like to read. So if you look over here in the two reads section you can see Zapier. I love their blog and so she knows that I want to read that later. The Daily Stoic, there's a few others but anyway the way that she gets it into that box is she comes over here. She clicks the star and she clicks it again and clicks it again and then you'll see there's a blue eye and that moves it
- 06:30 - 07:00 over to this section. Okay and so the next icon on here is a question mark and what that means is you know how when you reach out to someone and the ball is in their court and then you sort of forget about it? Well what this does is it allows you to follow up with that person. So as you can see, I clicked on the purple check mark there on the left. It came over here in the right under
- 07:00 - 07:30 awaiting reply. So I know that I need to check on this, you know, whenever. This is about as full as my inbox ever is because right now it's late in the day when I wake up tomorrow morning and I come in and check in into my email, I might have four emails over here in the star folder and everything over here in the main section will have been deleted or archived. If you have a Facebook group that is the third ideal task that you should hand over to a VA. Ninety percent of the things that
- 07:30 - 08:00 you do in a Facebook group are tasks that you can handle to a VA and they're very process-driven. They're things that can be repeated, weekly tasks monthly tasks, annual tasks. For example, every month at the beginning of the month my VAs find out through the analytics that Facebook groups give you they just put it on a platter for you and show you your top 20 most engaged, I think it's 20 or 10 most engaged Facebook group members. Well, that's something that your VA can
- 08:00 - 08:30 do. They could take a screenshot of that. Post it in your Facebook group. Tag each of those members and it goes such a long way in making people feel great and your VA can do this as your brand avatar. So when they post, it's posting as your company avatar. Our members love this. It's such a meaningful thing to do and yet so easy and you don't have time for it right look these are the little things that you probably don't have time for but if it's set up as a system,
- 08:30 - 09:00 as a process, it's done every month. Then your VA is just checking those boxes. And 90% of the things that you're posting in there, questions that need to be answered, those can be done by your VAs and the beauty in that is that your VA, all along the way, is really getting to know your community so they're able to serve them better 360 degrees. Graphics. You don't need a really top-notch graphic designer in your business. These days especially if you've spent
- 09:00 - 09:30 any time in canva.com you know this if you've never been to canva.com, run don't walk. It's an amazing, amazing tool that allows us to create very professional-looking graphics and the reason is because the templates in Canva were created by some of the best graphic designers out there. So we simply have to change the colors. Fill in the words that we want and we look like we did hire, you know, top-notch graphic designers. So your VA can absolutely do that for almost all of the
- 09:30 - 10:00 graphics that you need in your business. Also, they're wonderful services you can subscribe to. We love Template Tribe because every single month the owner of that business creates these fantastic templates for everything for pdfs, freebies, and workbooks and Zoom backgrounds, and just anything that you could possibly need. We absolutely love it and I'll put a link to that down below in the resources. From social media to landing pages to all your funnels and so forth.
- 10:00 - 10:30 Speaking of landing pages and funnels that brings us to our next perfect ideal task to give to your VA and that is landing pages and opt-in boxes and all the pieces of the funnel - sales pages because all these whether you use Squarespace or Kajabi or LeadPages, whatever it is you use, they've got templates. The templates look great. Your VA can use the templates and as far as the process for doing that, you know, you can set it up one time and your VA can replicate that over
- 10:30 - 11:00 and over again. Newsletters are you sending out a weekly newsletter to your audience and if not, why not? Probably because you don't have time to think of what to say every week. You're so busy with everything else like who's got time for that? And the beauty of doing a compilation sort of a roundup type of newsletter is that it can be turned into a system
- 11:00 - 11:30 and templated. So let me explain. Have you ever seen Tim Ferriss' Five Bullet Friday email? Perfect example of kind of a roundup email. It's short and sweet and he just links to five things that he's, you know, something he might be reading a funny joke he heard, a great movie that he just watched, a delicious wine that he just tasted, a quote that he heard, an exercise that he did, just some but there's five of them. And it comes out every single Friday like clockwork and it's great. We do something similar in my business it's not as brief but we
- 11:30 - 12:00 do a compilation a roundup email of social media news, things people have posted in our group, announcements, great deals that we found. We send one out on Monday to one group and we send one out on Friday to another group. This is a hundred percent done by my team and they're just rounding up content. They're putting in the applicable links for that content, all the graphics, all the things we need, and that's consistent content that's going out twice a week that I don't
- 12:00 - 12:30 really have other than I do give it a once over before it goes out but they take care of that. I do not spend any time on that but it's high value and my audience loves it. Podcasts production and promotion. Everything from the show notes at the end to the timestamps to the transcripts, did I already say transcripts? to the promotional images and the little audiograms that need to be created. Every bit of that process can be done to your VA so by your VA. So that you really are just
- 12:30 - 13:00 stepping into your office getting in front of that microphone and pressing record. That is all I do for my podcast is I literally just hit record and everything else happens by my team. Editing. My VA are perfectly capable of editing my podcast episode but we do outsource that to an agency that just does podcast editing. Video editing. Basic video editing can be done by your
- 13:00 - 13:30 virtual assistant. So whether that's just adding an intro and an outro to your Zoom meetings that after the fact or any kind of video that you produce can be edited by your virtual assistant. And they they have tools now that are just so easy to use. You know, the pros use things like final cut pro, right, but we don't need anything that sophisticated something like a Camtasia or a Screenflow works great. It's super simple and your VA can absolutely do basic video editing.
- 13:30 - 14:00 And as they get more experienced, they can start to do fancier stuff. Zoom replays. So that sort of ties in with videos but it's a little more specific if you're a coach or anyone who does regular Zoom calls for your community or your members, you know, that there's so much work to do after you end that meeting because the video has to get processed, the transcripts have to get created if you're like us you'll put timestamps into the highlights,
- 14:00 - 14:30 and put that in the show notes so people can easily access the information that they need. Then it needs to be sent out. The replay needs to be sent out to the relevant people who may or may not have been tagged in your email marketing system. So all of that Zoom stuff that goes to your VA. Task number 10, new client onboarding. So there's a starting point for every new client every new student every new customer there is
- 14:30 - 15:00 some sort of process that is in your business already and every bit of that can be handed over to your virtual assistant. So let's suppose you get a new client the very first thing they need to do is fill out a questionnaire that needs to be sent to them. Sn invoice needs to be sent. A receipt needs to be sent. A welcome email needs to be sent. Maybe you have a welcome video that you're going to send. Maybe they need to get access to a particular program, product, platform,
- 15:00 - 15:30 Google Drive folder, all those things all those parts and pieces you got it, your VA. Affiliate Campaigns. So affiliate campaigns are you've taken a course for example and you love the course and the course creator says, "Hey you know what if you tell other people about this program? Then I am going to give you, you know, 40% of any referrals that you send my way." or maybe you use a product like Convertkit or Kajabi or Clickfunnels or something like that and they tell you, "Hey you
- 15:30 - 16:00 know we're going to do this promotion and if you get the word out you're going to get x percentage of every person that you send our way." Well, if you're already using these products and you already love these things then why not, you know, share the word and spread the word and then also get that nice commission. The problem is they send you these wonderful packages, right, have you seen them? They've got graphics. They've got swipe copy. They really have everything you need but it still takes time because you have to make those emails your own. You have to make sure that
- 16:00 - 16:30 the graphics are what you want to use. You have to put it in your content calendar and think, okay, where does this fit? What day am I going to send? What emails on? And you really do have to plan for it but it's really something that can be completely handed over to your virtual assistant and you have, no your hand is not in it at all and really the only thing that you have to do is sit back and watch your PayPal balance increase. And lastly what i want to say
- 16:30 - 17:00 and maybe you've picked up on this based on all the tasks that I've given you. There's really nothing that you can't outsource to a VA except the stuff that only you can do. Right? So your VA cannot get on and do your webinar. Your VA cannot write your book. Your VA cannot do your podcast. Although I will say that my VA stepped in for me on my podcast yesterday because I missed the plane and I had to sleep on the floor at the Atlanta airport and that's
- 17:00 - 17:30 another story. But for the most part, your VA can't do that stuff but that's the stuff that you do. That's the stuff that is revenue-producing, all the rest of it goes to your virtual assistant. So thanks for watching today on the best tasks to outsource to your virtual assistant. If you like today's video, make sure to like and subscribe because there's a lot more where this came from, and don't forget to hit the little bell so you never miss a future episode. See you next time.